Issues with Vimeo Embed in H5P (Safari playback & double progress bars in Chrome)

Submitted by philippelmer on Wed, 08/13/2025 - 05:11
Forums: 
Bugs in content types

Hi everyone,

We’re using WordPress + H5P for interactive content and Vimeo for video hosting.
Originally, we embedded Vimeo videos in H5P using the direct video links (MP4), which worked fine technically — but this exposed the raw video URLs in the page source, which we want to avoid.

To protect the videos, we activated Vimeo Domain Protection and switched to using Vimeo Embed links inside H5P. This solved the URL exposure problem, but introduced two new issues:

1. Videos not playing in Safari

When using the embed links, the videos don’t play at all in Safari (macOS and iOS).
We found this old thread from over two years ago describing the same problem, but it seems unresolved:
https://h5p.test.schulcloud-thueringen.de/node/1378424

2. Double progress bars in Chrome

When viewed in Chrome, the Vimeo player’s progress bar appears in addition to H5P’s own progress bar.
In Firefox, only the H5P progress bar is shown — which is the desired behavior.

If we disable the Vimeo progress bar in the Vimeo settings, the playback controls in H5P become unreliable.

Interestingly, the double progress bar does not occur when the video is opened in H5P’s preview mode — in that case, Chrome behaves as expected and only shows H5P’s progress bar.

When using the direct video links instead of embeds, we don’t see the Vimeo progress bar — only H5P’s — and the controls work fine.

What we have tried so far

  • Using direct video links (MP4) in H5P — works fine technically, but exposes URLs in page source.
  • Enabling Vimeo Domain Protection and using embed links — prevents URL exposure, but causes the Safari and Chrome issues described above.
  • Disabling the Vimeo progress bar in Vimeo settings — removes the double bar but breaks reliable playback control in H5P.
  • Testing across browsers (Safari, Chrome, Firefox) and platforms (macOS, iOS, Windows) — issues are reproducible.
  • Comparing live mode vs. H5P preview mode — preview mode behaves correctly in Chrome, live mode does not.

Questions:

  • Is there a known workaround to make Vimeo embed playback work reliably in Safari?
  • Is there any way to suppress Vimeo’s progress bar in Chrome without breaking H5P’s player controls?

  • Could the different behavior in preview mode be a clue for a fix?

Any suggestions or insights would be greatly appreciated! If anyone can help us solve this, we would also be open to arranging paid support for implementing a reliable solution.

Thanks in advance,
Philipp